Skip to main content
British Medical Journal logoLink to British Medical Journal
. 1974 Jun 8;2(5918):533–535. doi: 10.1136/bmj.2.5918.533

Eye Defects of Mentally Handicapped Children

J L Kennerley Bankes
PMCID: PMC1610946  PMID: 4135149

Abstract

Among 171 children who received routine ophthalmic and orthoptic examinations as part of their evaluation for suspected or known developmental handicap it was found that there was an unusually high incidence of ocular defects. Especially prevalent were high refractive errors (52%) and squints (40%), but there were also a number of other serious eye defects ranging from nystagmus and cataracts to microphthalmos.

Because of this high incidence of eye defects it was considered essential that ophthalmic and orthoptic examinations should be part of the routine evaluation of developmentally handicapped children by the team of workers in an assessment centre.

Full text

PDF

Selected References

These references are in PubMed. This may not be the complete list of references from this article.

  1. FANTL E. W., PERLSTEIN M. A. Ocular refractive characteristics in cerebral palsy. Am J Dis Child. 1961 Jul;102:36–41. doi: 10.1001/archpedi.1961.02080010038008. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  2. Gardiner P. A. Visual defects in cases of Down's syndrome and in other mentally handicapped children. Br J Ophthalmol. 1967 Jul;51(7):469–474. doi: 10.1136/bjo.51.7.469. [DOI] [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]

Articles from British Medical Journal are provided here courtesy of BMJ Publishing Group

RESOURCES